China Ethnic Koreans Are Regarding A Unified Korea As Their “Motherland”

12/15/04
Li Linqing CDJP 存库之前的阅读次数：197

I belonged to the group of people called “Chinese Korean”. Officially, we were “Chinese” of “Korean Race”. But this official or academic interpretation was not in the real minds of us. Because most of us were either descendants of the Korean refugees in the early 1900s, or first, second or at most third generations of the Korean refugees and forced immigrants (by Japanese) from Korean in the World Wall II. Unlike other ethnic minorities in China that they belonged to the land in the nation called China, almost nobody of us believed that we belonged to the land of China, we belonged to the country called “Korean”, a united one, not the divided one, the Korean when our ancestors left. So, while other China minorities, like Tibetans, Uygurs believed that China invaded and took them under China’s control, while other China minorities like Mongolians and Manchurians actually invaded China, took control of China and then got themselves intergraded into China, the Chinese Korean, no matter how the China government wanted to keep us in China, we just don’t believe China was the country we belonged.

For further understanding about the Chinese Korean in China, some more important points worth to mention. To be short, China government wanted to keep us in China, we appreciated the effort that China provided the refuge to our ancestors and treated the “Chinese Korean” friendly, at least friendlier compared to what it treated Tibetans or Uygers. But we were also aware of the China government’s intentions – it wanted to keep the population in China to influence the Korean, now North and South. Also to be short, North Korea government not only just propagate, but also secretly had patriotic projects in the Chinese Korean communities. The practice were very similar to the China Communist Government that it encouraged overseas Chinese to return to China to serve the country in the 1950s and encourages overseas Chinese to invest and to send money to China to help its economy, North Korean government called Chinese Korean to return to serve in the 50s, 60s, 70s and even 80s, and asked Chinese Korean to help with food, money and other necessities in the late 90s when its economy entered disastrous situation. Although the relationship between the two governments were generally fine, there were conflicts between China and North Korea regarding the patriotic projects secretly conducted by the North Korea government. When North Korea secretly organized patriotic study groups in the Chinese Korean communities, China government destroyed those groups and arrested, prosecuted spies, etc. But, no matter the messages were carried down from the family or because of the North Korea government organized efforts, it was and it is still a fact that the Chinese Koreans don’t believe that we belong to China.

Because of the history of the Chinese Korean’s migration, because of the North Korean’s propaganda, and also because of the Chinese Korean families likely all have some relatives in Korean (mostly in the North), we Chinese Koreans concern more Korean issues much more than the China issues. Some of us more concern to help relatives in the North and wanted to see the North to change, at least to change to the direction like China did, some of us “patriot” themselves to the South because there was no way for them to like the North government system. But due to political situations in the three governments (I would not like to say the three “countries”), a large portion, we estimated about at least 10% of the Chinese Korean populations felt lost our identities – we do not belong to China, we do not want to resettle to the North Korea, and the South Korean does not or has no means to let us to resettle. The ideal in some concerned Chinese Koreans’ minds now is to play a collective role in the reunification of the Korea so that the Chinese Koreans will have political power in the future united Korea. The ideal is circulating now among the Chinese Koreans in China, among the Chinese Koreans in the South Korea, among the Chinese Koreans in Japan, and among the Chinese Koreans in the United States or in other countries. We received support both from the South Koreans and the Chinese dissidents organizations outside China.

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